Corsair move delayed

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Gusty weather delays Corsair restoration - The Connecticut Post Online

STRATFORD — In its heyday, the 20 knots blowing around the vintage Corsair at the Sikorsky Memorial Airport would have been a mere breeze.
But it was enough to scrub plans Saturday morning to remove the World War II fighter plane from its outdoor pedestal and bring it into a nearby hanger to be restored.

"I'm calling it off; the wind is making this too risky,'' said Jerry O'Neill, a leader of the restoration committee. But O'Neill and several other members of the nearby Connecticut Air and Space Museum climb ladders to peer into the cockpit and he and others examined the plane's structural members to determine the extent of the work that is needed.

"The spar looks like it hasn't been touched since World War II,'' said O'Neill, a former curator of the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks. "If we only have to strip and clean it in place, that's what we'll do." Water settles on the spar, the main load-carrying structure, and the paint on it needs to be exfoliated, he said.

"With the modern sealing compounds and paints available, we can make it last for another 30 years.''

The unique gull-shaped wings that gave the Corsair its nickname of "The Whistling Death'' won't be removed unless absolutely necessary, restoration committee members said. An outside consultant will be brought in to access the amount of work needed. The plane, manufactured at the nearby Chance-Vought plant, was used to provide cover for ground troops in key Pacific battles, including Midway and Guadalcanal, said Thomas Kanesky, former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps League, the plane's owners. It was the Japanese who gave the plane its nickname, he said.
There had been a battle brewing over the Corsair at the entrance to the airport, between the Marines Corps League and the private Connecticut Air and Space Museum, based in a section of the former U.S. Army Engine plant across from the airport. Last fall Kanesky said that his group would demand a bond from the museum, to insure that it would be returned to its pedestal when the two-year project is complete.

"We want it out where people can see it,'' Kanesky said Saturday. "They don't have the wherewithal to post a bond, but if they don't want a lawsuit they'll put it back up when the work is done. Everyone seems sincere.''

Museum official Morgan Kaolian, the former airport manager and a restoration committee member agreed that the goal is to place the plane back on its pedestal. "We don't know if the integrity of the plane has been weakened, and 37 years ago when we got it here I proposed a geodesic dome over it.''

O'Neill said that funds for materials could be raised by selling commemorative bricks to be placed in a small garden at the base. The labor alone, if it had to be paid for, would cost $1 million or more.

With the removal off for the day, pilots and enthusiasts turned to telling stories. Alex Sawchyn, whose military service included flying coal, wheat and comedian Bob Hope in a P-38 during the 1948 Berlin Airlift, recalled a "dogfight'' over Milford.

"There were P-38s stationed here during the war and one day Boone Gouden, who lived in Milford, challenged a P-38 pilot in a contest to see which plane was more maneuverable,'' Sawchyn said. "They flew out over Milford; the Corsair won.''